


Conversations in the Dark

by GhostOfTasslehoff



Category: DragonLance
Genre: Angst and Feels, Best Friends, Expanding on friendship, Flint doesn’t want to admit that he cares about Tas more than he lets on, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Important Conversations, M/M, Tasslehoff adores Flint so much, but mostly heartwarming, only somewhat shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-22 14:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22850770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostOfTasslehoff/pseuds/GhostOfTasslehoff
Summary: When you are on a mission to save all of Krynn from an angry, evil goddess, you have to take what moments of solace you can find.
Relationships: Flint Fireforge/Tasslehoff Burrfoot
Kudos: 7





	Conversations in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This was written sporadically in the summer of 2018, and I forgot all about it until I was going through my phone notes. But it was too sweet for me to let it languish. If the Dragonlance fandom is still kicking, I hope you enjoy these little scenes!
> 
> p.s. Anyone who follows me for Death Note fic, please feel free to ignore this! 💕

“Flint?”

The old dwarf twitched his head towards the source of the barely audible whisper and cracked one eye open. Sleep was hard enough to come by, and he knew that pretending to be asleep would probably not fool Tasslehoff - the kender seemed to have a knack for knowing when he was faking it.

“What is it, Tas?” he asked quietly, stifling a yawn. Better to just get this over with.

Tas’ eyes flicked over to Elistan’s sleeping form on Flint’s other side, barely visible in the dark tent, and apparently satisfied that the cleric was deeply asleep, murmured, “I can’t sleep.”

“Obviously.” Flint waited as Tas fidgeted.

“And we haven’t had much chance to catch up, just us, since this whole thing began.”

“That’s true.” Flint eyed the kender huddled into his side and waited to see if he would continue. Tasslehoff sometimes got into these thoughtful, almost broody moods, but it usually didn’t take him very long to voice his thoughts. Sure enough, after a long moment of quiet, he spoke again.

“You came back a little sadder than before,” Tas whispered, eyes wide and sympathetic in the dark. He reached up to press a hand lightly to Flint’s chest, fingers carding slightly through the fur poking out of the seams of the vest. “What happened while we were apart? Are you okay?”

The fact that he had even noticed that surprised Flint, and he shifted until he was angled a little more towards his friend. He reached up to lay a hand over Tas’, stilling the motion of his fingers, and closed his eyes with a soft sigh.

“You see too much sometimes, lad,” he murmured, shaking his head. “I can’t talk about it right now. Maybe once this is all over, I’ll relate the story to you, aye?”

There was a small sound like a suppressed sigh, and he nearly smiled at the audible pout in Tasslehoff’s voice as the kender whispered, “Okay... you promise?”

“I do,” he reassured him, squeezing his hand to let him know he meant it. They were both quiet for a long moment, and Flint just listened to the sound of Tasslehoff breathing against him before saying softly, “So... it looks like you avoided that marriage after all.”

“Huh?” Tasslehoff’s fingers clenched under his before loosening again, and Flint cracked open one eye again with a wry smile on his lips. It wasn’t often he surprised the kender. A grin bloomed on Tas’ face and he started talking excitedly. “Oh... yeah, I guess you’re right. She married my uncle Trapspringer instead. Weird, huh? And they went to the moon for their honeymoon! I’m happy for them.”

Tas’ smile faded out slightly to be replaced by something more wistful, with perhaps a touch of longing, and he looked down as he continued, “Though... I couldn’t help but think that maybe... it might be nice to- to actually... get married someday. With someone who I actually know- and love. I didn’t really- she was very annoying, and I couldn’t- I was glad when she decided to marry Uncle Trapspringer instead, and she wasn’t so bad at the end, after all, since we DID all save Kendermore together, but... it might be nice, is all.”

Flint just stared at him the whole time, watching Tas’ down turned expression morph from wistful longing to flushed anticipation and then settle into a resigned, blushing, almost apologetic smile. It seemed to Flint like the kender knew that marriage wasn’t ever going to be in the cards for him, and that thought clutched at the old dwarf’s heart in a way he hadn’t known he could still feel. He suddenly felt the urge to say something blindly optimistic, to reassure Tasslehoff that he was loved and could have the married life someday (maybe even after everything was over, a traitorous little voice said in the back of the dwarf’s mind, even as he buried it back where it had come from)... but he pushed that urge down as well, letting go of the kender’s fingers when Tasslehoff threw him a questioning wince. The kender shook his fingers to get feeling back into them and then looked up at Flint again, a sweetly reassuring smile painting his features. Tas was trying to reassure HIM? It was more than he deserved.

“At least I’ve still got my best friends, right?” Tas whispered, eyes bright with something unspoken, and Flint could no more look away in that moment than he could stop Tas from leaning upwards and pressing a soft kiss to his whiskery cheek. Flint very carefully did not react. With a wide yawn, Tasslehoff settled back down against him and mumbled, “G’night Flint.”

It took a long time after that for Flint to finally fall asleep. 

—after the assault on Ice Wall Castle, the first night on the ship to Sancrist—

“Flint?”

The soft, soothing voice didn’t really do much to relieve his suffering. The warm, damp rag that met his skin, gently wiping sweat from his face, and the fingers that stroked his temples did much more to soothe the aching in his head, and Flint turned towards the source of the voice, not at all surprised to see Tas’ familiar face hovering above his, now pinched with concern.

“How are you feeling?” Tas asked, keeping his voice gentle, dipping the rag back into the bucket of steaming water and wringing it out before gently wiping at the dwarf’s face again. Flint grunted and half-heartedly pushed his hand away. Unperturbed, Tasslehoff kept up his ministrations.

“Like death warmed over,” Flint muttered, fighting back the nausea as the ship swayed alarmingly. Blasted kender didn’t even seem to notice. Right now, he heartily envied Tas’ constitution.

“What?” Tas leaned in closer, and for a wild moment, Flint was afraid he was going to get sick all over the kender. Luckily, the moment passed and he was able to fight it down, but it made him glare up at the kender.

“I SAID,” he started, louder this time and more annoyed, “why do you all insist on dragging me onto these confounded BOATS?!”

“Ship,” Tas corrected, smiling a little as he laid the cloth on Flint’s forehead.

“It’s a BOAT,” Flint said firmly, folding his arms loosely and glaring even harder at Tas. He had to admit (privately, and only in his own head) that it felt nice that Tasslehoff cared enough to look after him despite his grousing, and the thought was enough to keep him scowling, though he made no move to push Tas away.

“Ship or boat, it’s still the only way we could get to Sancrist,” Tasslehoff reminded him, reaching for the dwarf’s hand and wrapping his slender fingers around Flint’s clenched ones. “I know you’re not feeling well, but-”

“Your blathering is making me feel WORSE,” Flint grumbled, letting Tasslehoff’s fingers coax his hand open.

“Well, at least you’re not being as big a baby as I was,” Tas said quietly, unusually subdued as he looked down. His eyes started to get that glassy sheen they got when he was going to cry, and Flint abruptly felt like a jerk.

“Aw, come on lad, you know I needed to get you moving somehow,” he said gruffly, twining his fingers through Tas’ and squeezing. “I’ve never seen you lose it quite like that.” ‘ _And it scared me to see you so lost,_ ’ hung unspoken in the air between them as Tas shook his head.

“Aran and Brian died, and I almost _stabbed_ you,” Tas whispered, lips trembling, and he clung to Flint’s hand as a few tears spilled over.

“But you DIDN’T stab me,” Flint reminded him.

“But I could have-“

“No,” Flint said firmly, trying and failing to sit up. He had forgotten about his nausea and headache for the moment, but his body was still very weak. He tugged Tas closer, nearly ending up with the kender sprawled across his chest, and as Tas sputtered and scrambled to sit back comfortably again, he continued, “Even if you had stabbed me, it wouldn’t have killed me, so stop blaming yourself for something that didn’t happen. And stop blaming yourself for not doing more, because you saved my life. That wolf would have killed me had you not acted. THAT is what you should take away from all of that. You saved my life, we beat the wizard, and we got the orb, and we managed to survive for a little longer.”

Tas stared at him with eyes still brimming with tears, and then he gave Flint a watery smile before hugging the dwarf tightly. Flint let him cry himself out, rubbing his back soothingly until he was done, and then shoved the kender away with a gruff mutter of, “Alright alright, I can’t breathe well as it is, no need to suffocate me on top of everything else.”

Hiccuping, Tasslehoff said softly, “Thank you, Flint.”

“Don’t mention it,” Flint said, eying Tas as his head started throbbing again. “Do you think the captain has anything for this awful headache?”

“I’ll go ask,” Tas said promptly, squeezing Flint’s fingers again and immediately jumping up.

As he disappeared, Flint sighed and murmured towards his back, “You need to find someone more deserving to dote on, lad, you’re still so young.”

Coughing, he lay back and forced himself to consider the fact that he might not survive this adventure after all. And Tasslehoff was only becoming more and more obvious with his feelings towards him. That wasn’t going to end well. So why couldn’t he bring himself to say anything directly to the kender?

* * *

Quick though their journey was, it could not end quick enough for Flint. Tasslehoff, unprompted, dutifully spent every moment he could tending to the old dwarf, though nothing he did really helped with the horrible twisting of Flint’s guts. His seasickness just made him more impossibly grouchy than he normally was, and quite a few times, he bellowed at the kender to leave him to die in peace, but Tas always came back. It was quite heartwarming, really, though he still wasn’t in any position to appreciate it right now.

And then they got run aground by the dragon, and he had a whole new level of misery to deal with. Tasslehoff seemed to be quite invigorated by the burst of excitement, and that blasted knight was trying to start yet ANOTHER fight, to which Flint only had poisonous things to mutter as he mustered his strength to shut Derek High-and-Mighty down. The entire ordeal was utterly ridiculous.


End file.
